Mail armor makes no sense

[Wilfire]

1. It would make more sense for shamans to wear leather. Most of iconic shaman heroes, such as World Shaman Thrall, Drek'Thar, OG Rehgar and Muln, all wear leather armor. Real life shamans and shamans in most other fictional fantasy worlds also wear leather.

2. It would make more sense for hunters to wear leather. Some of iconic hunter heroes, such as OG Shandris and Rexxar, wear leather armor. You could argue that Sylvanas wears mail but she is more of a Dark Ranger or a military ranger than a hunter. It makes no sense for a hunter to stomp through the forest in clunky, noisy mail.

3. Mail, as it is designed by Blizzard, has no identity. Some mail sets are clearly leather (e.g. Gronnstalker gear). Other sets are clearly undercooked plate. There are very few sets that look like actual mail and for a good reason. Real life mail is boring as hell. It's like a piece of fabric made of linking metal.

4. It's a waste of resources. Mail is only represented by 2 classes (shamans and hunters) while Plate has 3, leather had 4!!! and cloth has another 3.

To me mail feels like a relic from vanilla WoW where Blizzard arbitrarily decided that mail classes should upgrade to plate and leather to mail at some level. For the reasons outlined above I believe that Blizzard should either move both hunters and shamans to leather armor or lift transmog restrictions and allow people to mog things one armor class below (plate to mail, mail to leather, leather to cloth).

[Ehrenpanzer]

So.. you want DH/Druids/Rogues/Monks/Shamans AND Hunters all to share leather?

[Kithelle]

Anduin is a priest and he goes around in plate...special npcs break class rules (And Thrall used to wear plate armor too)

Some cloth and leather sets almost look like mail/plate with all the big metal pieces

It would be a waste of resources going through 15 years of armor just to change it because one person doesn't like it

[cocomen2]

So.. you want DH/Druids/Rogues/Monks/Shamans AND Hunters all to share leather?

Shaman = Plate (Thrall old model looked like plate user and most of shaman shoulders look like plate , good way to save shaman ass from random rogues)

Hunter = Leather (bow user , need to move fast and jump around)

[Flatspriest]

Mail armor used to have another utility. Plate wearers were not able to wear actual plate until level 40, so they had to wear mail armor until then. Though, you used to be able to wear any type of armor as long as it was your main type or lower. Clothies could only wear cloth, but all other armor wearers could wear it as well.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19556/thrall
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=105207/r...rthfury#outfit
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=48084/muln-earthfury
Out of the 4 Shamans you named, only one of them wears leather.

[shise]

(plate to mail, mail to leather, leather to cloth).

And cloth to what, then?
What they should do is bring the next class to use Mail, and start designing a bit better mail. Maybe even update teh textures on a couple of sets here and there (from the past).
That is far easier than pushing two classes more into leather.

Mail is meant to be a step between leather and plate.. so be it. Mail should bring in a bit more stamina (for example, and to make sense). Today artists have it easy with the current technology to make good mail sets representations.

[paxen]

Hunter should use Leather, Shaman should use Plate, and Monk* (and possibly Demon Hunter) should use cloth.

If you keep DH on leather you then have 3 armor types with 4 classes each.


*Back in Mists, when Monks were introduced, armor had only a single main stat so Monks used leather, as otherwise they would have needed to add agi cloth to every loot table just for Monks. Then later they reworked it into the current system where armor switches main stat depending on spec.

[Kralljin]

Fails on the fact that you'd then have 6 classes wearing leather.

One can argue over Shaman and Hunters wearing Mail, it's in my opinion a case by case decision, issue is that Shaman / Hunter are in art portrayed as doing crossdressing or using armor that mixes the two.

But i'm more on the side of "Armor types should matter more", there is enough that has been pruned out of the game for the sake of streamlining.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=19556/thrall

You mean the outfit that his future his wife had to call him out as being a "Warriors outfit"?

Doomhammer armor is Plate Armor, it's not even mail.

https://www.wowhead.com/npc=105207/r...rthfury#outfit
https://www.wowhead.com/npc=48084/muln-earthfury
Out of the 4 Shamans you named, only one of them wears leather.

I feel like this is sort of a feedback loop, of course they are wearing "mail" because they are Shaman and every Shaman armor is considered Mail.

The T10 doesn't even look like some mail outfit, it looks like it's made out of leather and bone, compare that something like Wotlk PvP armor, which actually looks like it's at least made out of metal.

[MrMatticus]

At this point in WoW, armor restrictions are about as useless as class/race restrictions.

[Deneios]

Mail is used in anti-bite gear when working around animals with a lot of pointy teeth or sharp claws. Example irl sharks. Its lighter than plate and woven in with other fabrics or layered with leather its silent. Mail armor is designed around the idea that cuts cant bite into the flesh. Also most animals dont like the feeling of metal against their teeth.

[Daedius]

Priests should wear mail, and be the Cleric trope!

[ati87]

Shaman = Plate (Thrall old model looked like plate user and most of shaman shoulders look like plate , good way to save shaman ass from random rogues)

Hunter = Leather (bow user , need to move fast and jump around)

Old Thrall also used to be a warrior and now is a shaman.
How come Thrall can change classes while the rest of us are stuck?

[XDurionX]

Gameplay is much more important than "realism".

[Deneios]

Shaman = Plate (Thrall old model looked like plate user and most of shaman shoulders look like plate , good way to save shaman ass from random rogues)

Hunter = Leather (bow user , need to move fast and jump around)

Tell that to the vikings pillaging your village that they are not allowed to wear mail

[Cosmic Janitor]

Fails on the fact that you'd then have 6 classes wearing leather.

And it wouldn't matter even one fucking tiny bit if that was the case.

Also rofl at all the shaman fanboys want to wear full plate. Plate is supposed to be full body bean can, totally shamany..

[Lochton]

1. It would make more sense for shamans to wear leather. Most of iconic shaman heroes, such as World Shaman Thrall, Drek'Thar, OG Rehgar and Muln, all wear leather armor. Real life shamans and shamans in most other fictional fantasy worlds also wear leather.

2. It would make more sense for hunters to wear leather. Some of iconic hunter heroes, such as OG Shandris and Rexxar, wear leather armor. You could argue that Sylvanas wears mail but she is more of a Dark Ranger or a military ranger than a hunter. It makes no sense for a hunter to stomp through the forest in clunky, noisy mail.

3. Mail, as it is designed by Blizzard, has no identity. Some mail sets are clearly leather (e.g. Gronnstalker gear). Other sets are clearly undercooked plate. There are very few sets that look like actual mail and for a good reason. Real life mail is boring as hell. It's like a piece of fabric made of linking metal.

4. It's a waste of resources. Mail is only represented by 2 classes (shamans and hunters) while Plate has 3, leather had 4!!! and cloth has another 3.

To me mail feels like a relic from vanilla WoW where Blizzard arbitrarily decided that mail classes should upgrade to plate and leather to mail at some level. For the reasons outlined above I believe that Blizzard should either move both hunters and shamans to leather armor or lift transmog restrictions and allow people to mog things one armor class below (plate to mail, mail to leather, leather to cloth).

Heroes can't be compared to players as we have many examples of change in stats, stance, and behavior of class.

And I sure as hell wouldn't leave one class for mail, or worse, remove mail and have way too many to share leather.

[Hellobolis]

i'd rather they move one of the leather classes over to mail so its 3/3/3/3 split between armor types intead of 3/4/2/3.

or alternatively, scrap armor types completely and go with something else, such as making armor have fixed str/int/agi again, introduce role based set bonusses, reintroduction of tank/healer/melee/ranged stats, or something else so you still have multiple armor archetypes. (or maybe not cause thats another ez excuse for blizz to make even less art assests per season.)

[Aleksej89]

would be simpler to move to a Light/Medium/Heavy armor split instead of going by "material" its made of.

[Cathbadh]

It would have been smart to put DH's on mail when they were created. There's no real lore reason one way or another to put them in leather as wearing a loin cloth and no shirt has been their motif as far as I know.

I'm of two minds about removing mail. First, its barely used and removing it would simplify things, especially loot lists and armor art. Monks could go cloth as I'm unfamiliar with any kung-fu fighters who wore a bunch of thick padded leather/boiled leather armor. Shaman could go leather since hide would kind of fit them. Hunters could go leather since that's "outdoorsey." On the other hand who cares? Blizzard seems willing to churn out guns/bows/crossbows for a single class as well as glaives for a different single class, and Blizzard isn't exactly known for wanting to make things easier on themselves or players, so why bother? There are bigger issues to deal with.